Metagender: Difference between revisions

Metagender existed as a technical term prior to its use by LGBT individuals, dating back at least to the 1980s, initially concerned with being outside or transcending binary gender, whether of imagery, perspectives, data, or people.<ref name=":5" /><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/murderdifference0000balm/page/110/mode/2up?q=%22meta+gender%22|title=Murder and difference: gender, genre, and scholarship on Sisera's death|last=Bal|first=Mieke|date=1992|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=|isbn=978-0-585-02512-4|location=Bloomington|pages=111-112|language=English|oclc=42854270|quote=Just as with disciplinary codes, notably the theological and liteary codes, the meta-gender code adopted by the interpreter in search of difference ought to be distinguished, first, from the personal gender code he or she has also adopted, most implicitly, by virtue of membership in a particular sexual group, and second, from the gender code he or she assumes the other has adopted...I will confront the possible contribution of a meta-gender code to the personal gender code, which, as we will see in the sample interpretations, remains implicit.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Costello|first=Bonnie|date=1989|title=Domestic Mysticism|url=http://archives.bu.edu/collections/partisan-review/search/detail?id=331558|journal=Partisan Review|volume=56|issue=4|pages=671|doi=|issn=0031-2525|quote=One challenge for contemporary women poets is to decide just how far they wish 'womanhood' to define the terms of their awareness. It is a good sign, I think, that 'the soul' has returned with a fresh, contemporary aura, not genderless, but metagendered. The metaphysical impulse arising in, altered and constrained by biology, runs through many of our best women-poets.|via=Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center}}</ref> Its use as a technical term with various definitions has [[Metagender#Academic and technical usage|persisted into the 2020s]].

In a 1999 interview printed in the magazine ''[[wikipedia:Femme_Fatales_(magazine)|Femme Fatales]]'', musician/poet/filmmaker [[wikipedia:Phoebe Legere|Phoebe Legere]] said "I am metagender, metasexual, not a man or a woman."<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://archive.org/details/Femme_Fatales_v08n04/page/n39/mode/2up| p=40-41|journal=Femme Fatales|volume=8|number=4|date=September 10, 1999| title=Mighty Aphrodite}}</ref>

In a 2006 book on transgender journeys, metagender was defined as "individuals who do not identify as either male or female."<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/crossingsexualbo00jari/page/364/mode/2up?q=phillip|title=Crossing sexual boundaries: transgender journeys, uncharted paths|last=|first=|date=2006|publisher=Prometheus Books|year=|isbn=978-1-59102-388-3|editor-last=Kane-Demaios|editor-first=J. Ari|location=Amherst, N.Y|pages=|oclc=ocm61309341|editor-last2=Bullough|editor-first2=Vern L.}}</ref>

In interviews for a 2018 thesis, an anonymous interviewee described metagender as an identity "beyond gender."<ref>Jacobson, Ariele (2018). ''[https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/38056/1/Jacobson_Ariele_2018_thesis.pdf To Lessen Repression and Depression: The Relationship Between Sexual Repression and Mental Health Among Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Individuals]'' (M.A. thesis, PDF). Saint Paul University. p. 21, 93.</ref>

{{Quote|Not all nonbinary people identify as trans, for various reasons. Because of this, a new term has also been coined to cover nonbinary people: metagender. I do acknowledge that I am technically transgender, but I also feel like the label doesn’t quite fit me. There’s still a lot of binary expectations with being transgender and I don’t see that experience as my own. At the same time, I wholly believe that nonbinary people should be accepted by the transgender community.|B.Alvinia|"Somewhere In Between"<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://bamuses.wordpress.com/2020/12/12/somewhere-in-between/|title=Somewhere In Between|last=B.Alvinia|date=2020-12-12|website=b.AM Muses|language=en|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref>}}

In the 2019 Worldwide Gender Census, one respondent called themselves metagender.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gendercensus.com/results/2019-worldwide-summary/|title=Gender Census 2019: Worldwide Summary|date=2020-11-11|website=Gender Census|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-12-24}}</ref> In the 2020 Worldwide Gender Census, four respondents called themselves metagender.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://gendercensus.com/results/2020-worldwide-summary/|title=Gender Census 2020: Worldwide Summary|date=2020-11-11|website=Gender Census|language=en-GB|access-date=2020-12-24}} "metagender: 2; metagender!: 1; meta-girl: 1"</ref> As of December 28, 2020, the "Metagender and Questioning" facebook group, founded after the gender modality coining, had 506 members, with an unknown number of members being metagender themselves.<ref name=":2" />

For 600 years into the present day, Bugis Society recognizes four genders, plus a fifth gender, [[Gender-variant identities worldwide#Bissu|bissu]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-27/indonesia-fifth-gender-might-soon-disappear/10846570|title=This Indonesian community has five genders — one of them is under threat of dying out|last=Ibrahim|first=Farid|date=2019-02-26|website=www.abc.net.au|language=en-AU|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref> Bissu, seen as a gender which combines and transcends other genders, has been labeled a "meta-gender" identity by anthropologists since 2001.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.insideindonesia.org/sulawesis-fifth-gender?highlight=WyJzaGFyeW4iLCJncmFoYW0iLCJncmFoYW0ncyIsInNoYXJ5biBncmFoYW0iXQ%3D%3D|title=Sulawesi's fifth gender|last=Graham|first=Sharyn|date=2001|website=Inside Indonesia|language=en-gb|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=}} 66: Apr-Jun. Retrieved January 08, 2021.</ref><ref name=":11">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.de/books?id=Qoq5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA102&dq=%22meta-gender%22+OR+%22meta-gendered%22+OR+%22metagenderism%22+OR+%22metagender%22+OR+%22metagendered%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj7lpfamPTtAhWG7KQKHRfYAXEQ6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q=%22meta-gender%22%20OR%20%22meta-gendered%22%20OR%20%22metagenderism%22%20OR%20%22metagender%22%20OR%20%20%22metagendered%22&f=false|title=The spectrum of sex: the science of male, female, and intersex|last=Viloria|first=Hida|last2=Law|first2=Alex|last3=Nieto|first3=María|last4=ProQuest (Firme)|date=2020|publisher=|year=|isbn=978-1-78775-265-8|location=London and Philadelphia|pages=102|language=English|oclc=1149536934}}</ref> "''Bissu'' embody elements of all genders within them, and thereby occupy a space outside or above any single gender identity. They are essentially beyond gender — ‘meta-gender’ or ‘gender-transcendent’ as they are sometimes described."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://learn.akkadium.com/beyond-binary-five-genders-of-the-bugis/|title=Beyond Binary: Five genders of the Bugis|last=Mark Anderson|date=2016-08-15|website=Akkadium College|language=en-US|access-date=2020-12-28}}</ref> This usage of meta-gender was later adopted in [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Indonesia Bahasa Indonesia] (the official language of Indonesia) as a loanword for describing the bissu, serving as a category for genders that transcend gender roles and a description of transcending gendered power relations to reach higher powers.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://slashqueer.com/the-bugis-of-indonesia-english-dubbed-transcript|title=The Bugis of Indonesia ENGLISH DUBBED- Transcript|website=/Queer|language=en-US|access-date=2020-12-30}}</ref><ref>Williams, Georgie. "[https://castbox.fm/app/castbox/player/id2443104/id311755818?v=8.22.11 /Queer – The Bugis of Indonesia (No Dub)]" ''/queer'' (Podcast). Retrieved 30 December 2020.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.blamakassar.kemenag.go.id/berita/pertunjukan-terakhir-kisah-para-bissu-dalam-impitan-kapitalisme-dari-atas-dan-bawah|title=Pertunjukan Terakhir: Kisah para Bissu dalam Impitan Kapitalisme dari Atas dan Bawah|last=|first=|date=2020-10-21|website=www.blamakassar.kemenag.go.id|language=id|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-31}}</ref>

Meta-gender as a transcendent ideal appears in scholarship of Daoism,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Komjathy|first=Louis|date=2015-03-24|title=Gendering Chinese Religion: Subject, Identity, and Body, edited by Jinhua Jia, Xiaofei Kang, and Ping Yao, 2014|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/nanu/17/2/article-p360_17.xml|journal=Nan Nü|volume=17|issue=2|pages=360–364|doi=10.1163/15685268-00172p17|issn=1387-6805|quote=Raz  be-lieves that androgyny or meta-gender is the ideal in his materials.|via=}}</ref> Buddhism,<ref name=":7" /> Christianity,<ref name=":8" /><ref name=":9" /> and other religious and spiritual traditions.   

Metagender was used to describe the transcendent gender of virgin saints in scholarly reconstructions by 2003.<ref>McDaniel, Rhonda L. (2003). ''[https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/1252 Male and Female He Created Them: Ælfric’s Lives of Saints and Patristic Theories of Gender]'' (Ph.D). Western Michigan University. 1252.   </ref> Theorized in the writings of the Latin Doctors in the fourth and fifth centuries, the metagendered ''virum perfectum'', belonging to the Body of Christ, encompassed and transcended masculine and feminine genders to become an angelic, otherworldly metagender.<ref name=":9" /> Through virginity and devotion to scripture, any sex could transcend earthly pleasures to become the heavenly metagender.<ref name=":9" /> Some Christians in the present day also use metagender to describe this state of transcending human gender to achieve a Godlike gender.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://lainaorlando.com/a-course-in-love/|title=A Course in Love|last=Orl|first=Laina|last2=o|date=2018-03-16|website=Laina Orlando|language=en-US|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref>

In addition to human spiritual identities, divine beings have been called "meta-gendered"—in the sense of transcending human gender categories—in religious scholarship and education of multiple religions. Examples include angels in Islam,<ref name=":10" /> the Christian God,<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.de/books?id=KUdgBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA55&dq=%22meta-gender%22+OR+%22meta-gendered%22+OR+%22metagenderism%22+OR+%22metagender%22+OR+%22metagendered%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwii4fLGj_TtAhXCuaQKHailDPkQ6AEwBnoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=%22meta-gender%22%20OR%20%22meta-gendered%22%20OR%20%22metagenderism%22%20OR%20%22metagender%22%20OR%20%22metagendered%22&f=false|title=Reforming worship: English reformed principles and practice|last=|first=|date=2012|publisher=Wipf & Stock Publishers|year=|isbn=978-1-61097-320-5|location=Eugene, Or.|pages=|language=English|oclc=801440436}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.gender-curricula.com/en/curriculum/theologie-katholisch|title=Gender Curricula für Bachelor- und Masterstudiengänge: Curriculum Catholic Theology|website=www.gender-curricula.com|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref><ref name=":9" /> and other spiritualities.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.de/books?id=JS1xDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT115&dq=%22meta-gender%22+OR+%22meta-gendered%22+OR+%22metagenderism%22+OR+%22metagender%22+OR+%22metagendered%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjWzPWWj_TtAhWICOwKHZh8AWEQ6AEwA3oECAYQAg#v=onepage&q=%22meta-gender%22%20OR%20%20%22meta-gendered%22%20OR%20%22metagenderism%22%20OR%20%22metagender%22%20OR%20%22metagendered%22&f=false|title=Spirit speak: knowing and understanding spirit guides, ancestors, ghosts, angels, and the divine|last=Domínguez|first=Ivo|date=2008|publisher=New Page Books|year=|isbn=978-1-60163-002-5|location=Franklin Lakes, NJ|pages=}}</ref> One [[Pagan|neopagan]] deity, Paneros of the Tetrad++, was "birthed" specifically as a metagendered deity.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/mediawiki/oclc/946958644|title=All-soul, all-body, all-love, all-power a transmythology|last=Lupus|first=P. Sufenas Virius|date=2016|isbn=978-1-4750-2528-6|language=English|oclc=946958644}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://psufenasviriuslupus.wordpress.com/pantheons/the-antinoan-pantheon/paneros-of-the-tetrad/|title=Paneros of the Tetrad++|date=2019-01-28|website=P. SUFENAS VIRIUS LUPUS|language=en|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref>

Metagender(ed) (sometimes meta-gender(ed) or metagenderism) has been used to describe "the academic engagement with or the theorizing of gender,"<ref>{{Cite book|title=Africa after gender?|publisher=Indiana University Press|date=2007|location=Bloomington, IN|isbn=978-0-253-34816-6|editor-first=Catherine M.|editor-last=Cole|editor-first2=Takyiwaa|editor-last2=Manuh|editor-first3=Stephan|editor-last3=Miescher|last=|first=|year=|pages=287, 289}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/mediawiki/oclc/1137077647|title=Queering knowledge: analytics, devices and investments after Marilyn Strathern|last=Boyce|first=Paul|last2=Gonzalez-Polledo|first2=E. J|last3=Posocco|first3=Silvia|date=2020|publisher=|year=|isbn=978-1-138-23098-9|location=|pages=Note 20|language=English|oclc=1137077647}} Note 20.</ref> religious identities and spiritual states that transcend gender,<ref name=":7">Scherer, Burkhard. (2006). ‘Gender Transformed and Meta-gendered Enlightenment: Reading Buddhist Narratives as Paradigms of Inclusiveness’ ''Revista de Estudos da Religião'' – REVER 6(3), pp. 65-76.</ref><ref name=":8">{{Cite book|url=https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442664579|title=Writing Women Saints in Anglo-Saxon England|last=Szarmach|first=Paul|date=2019|isbn=978-1-4426-6457-9|oclc=1091659301}}</ref><ref name=":9">{{Cite book|title=The third gender and Ælfric's Lives of saints|last=McDaniel|first=Rhonda L.|date=2018|publisher=Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University|isbn=978-1-58044-309-8|series=Richard Rawlinson Center series|location=Kalamazoo}}</ref><ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=al-Khawaldeh|first=Samira|date=2015-05-06|title=“The One Raised in Ornament?” Gendering Issues in the Qurʾan|url=https://brill.com/view/journals/haww/13/1/article-p1_1.xml|journal=Hawwa|volume=13|issue=1|pages=1–24|doi=10.1163/15692086-12341271|issn=1569-2078}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=5213031|title=Gender, sex, and sexualities: psychological perspectives|last=Dess|first=Nancy Kimberly|last2=Marecek|first2=Jeanne|last3=Bell|first3=Leslie C|date=2018|isbn=978-0-19-065855-7|language=English|oclc=1018308022}}</ref> systems of gender,<ref name=":18">{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/mediawiki/oclc/953860344|title=Negotiating Boundaries? Identities, Sexualities, Diversities|last=Beckett|first=Clare|last2=Heathcote|first2=Owen|last3=Macey|first3=Marie|date=2009|isbn=978-1-4438-1092-0|language=English|oclc=953860344}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.3726/978-3-0353-0144-1/2|title=Queering Paradigms II|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-3-0343-0295-1|year=2011|editor-last=Scherer|editor-first=Bee|editor-first2=Matthew|editor-last2=Ball}}</ref> sets of gender,<ref name=":21">{{Cite journal|last=Chen|first=Boyu|last2=Jin|first2=Hao|last3=Yang|first3=Zhiwen|last4=Qu|first4=Yingying|last5=Weng|first5=Heng|last6=Hao|first6=Tianyong|date=2019-04-09|title=An approach for transgender population information extraction and summarization from clinical trial text|url=https://doi.org/10.1186/s12911-019-0768-1|journal=BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making|volume=19|issue=2|pages=62|doi=10.1186/s12911-019-0768-1|issn=1472-6947|pmc=PMC6454593|pmid=30961595}}</ref> being beyond or outside binary gender categories,<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal|last=|first=|date=1987|title=Annales D'archéologie Égéenne de L'Université de Liège|url=https://books.google.de/books?id=f1fFPmPBAYcC|journal=Aegaeum|volume=30|pages=231|quote=We can see...what does help us to approach the door that opens onto Minoan realities is to study the meta-gender of the aniconic. We discern a cluster of symbols that were definitely greater than just female or male.|via=}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite book|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781118294291.ch24|title=A Companion to Gender Prehistory|last=Hitchcock|first=Louise|last2=Nikolaidou|first2=Marianna|date=2012|publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd|isbn=978-1-118-29429-1|pages=502–525|language=en|doi=10.1002/9781118294291.ch24|year=|location=|quote=Applying the concept of a third gender is rare in Aegean scholarship... Cadogan observes that the genderless aspects of Minoan culture... are understudied. He believes that the term 'meta-gender' better conveys something above and beyond binary categories.}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/jamesjoyceproble0000vale/page/136/mode/2up?q=metagender|title=James Joyce and the problem of justice: negotiating sexual and colonial difference|last=Valente|first=Joseph|date=1995|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=|isbn=978-0-521-47369-9|location=Cambridge [England] ; New York|pages=}} "Since to be human is to be sexed, there can be no metagender position in discourse, no superintending perspective on the question of gender and its associated baggage."</ref><ref>Kazanjian, David (2011). "[https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/discourse/vol33/iss3/4/ Re-flexion: Genocide in Ruins]," ''Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture'': 33(3), Article 4. "She is doubly excluded by Creon, then: a resident alien who must reside amongst the dead, a meta-gendered subject denied both the male polis and the female oikos."</ref><ref>Goodman, Z. J. (1997). [https://open.uct.ac.za/bitstream/handle/11427/20041/thesis_hum_1997_goodman_zilla_jane.pdf?sequence=1 Representations of the other in modern Hebrew literature](PhD). University of Cape Town.</ref> applying regardless of gender or to all genders equally,<ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=none&isbn=9781351984041|title=Shakespeare and Feminist Criticism (1991): an Annotated Bibliography and Commentary|last=Kolin|first=Philip C|date=2017|isbn=978-1-351-98403-4|language=English|oclc=1052448663}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=http://www.vlebooks.com/vleweb/product/openreader?id=Edinburgh&isbn=9781137054425|title=Doing feminist research in political and social science|last=Ackerly|first=Brooke A|last2=True|first2=Jacqui|date=2010|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-1-137-05442-5|location=Basingstoke; New York|language=English|oclc=1203336058}}</ref><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hussein Ali|first=Zahra A.|date=2018-09-01|title=George Meredith,          John S. Mill, and           Liberalized Womanhood|url=https://www.utexaspressjournals.org/doi/10.7560/TSLL60303|journal=Texas Studies in Literature and Language|volume=60|issue=3|pages=316–345|doi=10.7560/TSLL60303|issn=0040-4691|quote=...a triadic logos that interrelates "[b]lood and brain and spirit, three," which if "parted," "[s]ome one sailing will be wrecked!" ("Woods" 352, 355, 356). (8) This logos is meta-gender, and it can accommodate a broad spectrum of socioeconomic positions, from the liberal to the conservative.|via=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Morozova|first=Iryna I.|date=2016|title=A woman in the victorian female discourse.|url=https://lingvj.oa.edu.ua/articles/2016/n61/84.pdf|journal=Наукові записки Національного університету Острозька академія. Серія: Філологічна|volume=61|issue=|pages=218-220.|doi=|issn=|quote=The Victorian woman’s discourse is dominated by the situational and contextual factors; on the other hand, the factor of gender is of relative importance. This testifies preeminence of the metagender (common to the society / mankind on the whole) in the stereotypic communication of the Victorian woman.|via=}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Ilina|first=Ekaterina V.|last2=Polyakova|first2=Tatyana A.|date=31 May 2021|title=Language Androcentrism in British Textbooks in the 80s of the XXth century|url=https://ap.pensoft.net/article/22752/|journal=ARPHA Proceedings|volume=4|pages=424-431|quote=This point of classification of signs of androcentrism is achieved due to the fact that the pronoun he is used as a metagender, so it can replace the representatives of any gender, although, from the context, it follows that this neutral pronoun refers to a man only.}}</ref> gender studies about gender studies,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sun|first=Yinying|last2=Lou|first2=Wen|last3=Zhang|first3=Lin|date=13 October 2021|title=Meta-gender-study: A Gender Study of Global Distribution on Gender Studies|url=https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.581|journal=Annual Meeting of the Association for Information Science & Technology|volume=84th|pages=839-841|doi=}}</ref> and otherwise being about gender.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Devlin-Glass|first=Frances|date=1998|title='Teasing the audience with the play': feminism and Shakespeare at the Melbourne Theatre Company, 1984-93|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2870817|journal=Australasian Drama Studies|volume=|issue=33|pages=21-39|doi=|issn=0810-4123|via=https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=200000904;res=IELAPA}}</ref><ref name=":0" />   

{{Quote|These dynamics are meta-gendered, in that they impact men and women and those who don’t identify in the binary, without particular discrimination, putting all of us at risk for weirdly pervasive and unexamined suffering.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=How not to be a hot mess: a semi-Buddhist guide for surviving modern life|url=https://www.overdrive.com/search?q=BFBB0679-884D-4AB3-9A4B-8E9F89EA5615|date=2020|isbn=978-0-8348-4269-4|oclc=1151626639|language=English|first=Craig|last=Hase|first2=Devon|last2=Hase}} Retrieved at https://archive.org/details/how-not-to-be-a-hot-mess/page/n51/mode/2up?q=%22meta-gendered%22</ref>|Craig & Devon Hase|2020||||lang1=|col2=}}{{Quote|All the mapped gender types with valid annotations are split into a list of meta gender types, i.e., ‘Biological Male’, ‘Biological Female’, ‘Transgender Male’ and ‘Transgender Female.’<ref name=":21" />|An approach for transgender population information extraction and summarization from clinical trial text|2019}}

In 2010, "MetaGender" was used as an informal community-specific term to refer to the metafilter website's open text field for gender.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://metatalk.metafilter.com/20050/Gender-Go-nuts-Somebody-did|title=Gender (Go nuts). Somebody did.|last=oneswellfoop|first=|date=|website=metatalk.metafilter.com|language=en|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref> In 2017, pronouns were added as an open field, and in 2020 the gender field was deleted, citing the jokey nature of old answers that had aged badly.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://faq.metafilter.com/332/profile-page-gender-pronouns-field|title=about the gender and pronouns field on the profile page {{!}} MetaFilter FAQ|website=faq.metafilter.com|access-date=2020-12-29}}</ref>

MÉTA GENDER is the name of a French Butoh-Queer performance deconstructing gender, body, music, and performance, first performed in the 2010s.<ref>2000 [http://iconoklastes.com/index.php?/danse/meta-gender-par-dolores-k/ MÉTA GENDER]. ''Iconoklastes''</ref>

Transgender once included gender non-conforming people who would now be considered [[cisgender]],<ref name=":12" /><ref name=":17">{{Cite web|url=https://www.lavenderhat.org/2019/03/17/gender-isnt-ternary-either/|title=Gender Isn’t Ternary Either|last=lavenderhat|date=2019-03-17|website=Lavender Hat|language=en-US|access-date=2020-12-30}}</ref> with metagender being alternatively a description for gender behavior and sexes outside [[binarism]] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heteronormativity heteronormativity]<ref name=":12" /> or a super-set containing all means of conceptualizing gender or lack thereof, including transgender definitions.<ref name=":13" /> Complaints about transgender's inclusiveness that specifically contrasted with an expansive definition of metagender emerged as early as 1994.<ref name=":12" /> Metagender was described as a more expansive approach to gender outside strict cis binaries than transgender without being mutually exclusive, used to highlight the limitations of a dichotomy to contain all gender experiences.<ref name=":13" />

Metagender developed several niche definitions that some metagender people put under an expansive ''transgressively-gendered'' transgender umbrella<ref name=":14" /> that included [[gender non-conforming]] people.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.them.us/story/inqueery-genderqueer|title=Do You Know What It Means to Be Genderqueer?|last=them|website=them.|language=en-us|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref> Despite the work of [[Leslie Feinberg]] in the 1990s to coin transgender as a wide and inclusive umbrella term covering all forms of ''transgressive gender'', transgender became more associated with [[Transsexual|transsexualism]], [[gender dysphoria]], and [[Binary genders|binary gender]], while cisgender gender non-conforming people were no longer defined as transgender. [[Transmedicalism|Transmedicalists]] resisted the inclusion of nonbinary people as transgender or under a broader trans umbrella. Some terms were coined by people outside the gender binary out of frustration with the [[transgender]] umbrella. (See "[[Genderqueer#Is Genderqueer Transgender?|Is Genderqueer Transgender?]]") As with others of genderqueer or nonbinary gender, some people of metagender gender identity described themselves as technically transgender without identifying as transgender themselves or vice versa.<ref name=":20" /> Others saw their gender identity as complementary to transgender definitions.<ref name=":3" />  

Some metagender people consider themselves to fall under the transgender umbrella and some do not. While the trans umbrella is broadly seen to include all non-cisgender individuals, the advice of public health, gender diverse advocates, and gender diverse people themselves is to always use the descriptive term(s) preferred by the individual.<ref name=":17" /><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://genderminorities.com/database/glossary-transgender/|title=Trans 101: glossary of trans words and how to use them.|date=2016-06-24|website=Gender Minorities Aotearoa|language=en-US|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.transgenderpartners.com/glossary-of-terms|title=Glossary of Terms for Transgender People|website=TransGenderPartners.com|language=en-US|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.hrc.org/resources/reporting-about-transgender-people-read-this|title=HRC’s Brief Guide to Getting Transgender Coverage Right|website=HRC|language=en-US|access-date=2021-01-01}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/transgender/transgender-identity-terms-and-labels|title=What Are Appropriate Labels & Terms For Transgender People?|website=www.plannedparenthood.org|language=en|access-date=2021-01-08}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/nonbinary|title=Nonbinary: What Does It Mean?|date=2017-10-20|website=Healthline|language=en|access-date=2021-01-08}}</ref>